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Cambodia: Country Without Parties
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 August 2009
Extract
It would be easy, and not altogether inaccurate, to begin and end an article on Cambodian politics with the observation that Prince Sihanouk's leadership of the country has rendered political parties unnecessary. Since the establishment of the Sangkum Reastr Niyurn, the People's Socialist Community, in 1955, this political movement — the distinction is one made by its founder — has dominated Cambodian politics and succeeded in eclipsing the parties which existed up to 1955, with one minor exception. This exception is the Pracheachon, a partly clandestine front party for the Cambodian Communist Party. Its importance is negligible in a country in which social grievances, in contrast to so much of the rest of Asia, are limited, particularly in the countryside, where the peasant is normally a land-holder unencumbered by major problems of land indebtedness or land shortage.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1967
References
1. Despite the intense interest which has been manifest in Cambodia's international politics since the country attained independence, writing of a serious nature on both Cambodian external and internal politics has been surprisingly limited in quantity. A detailed account of Cambodia's international policies and the rationale behind them is contained in Smith, Roger M.'s Cambodia's Foreign Policy (Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press. 1965)Google Scholar. The same writer's ‘Cambodia’ in Kahin, George McT. (ed.), Governments and Politics Southeast Asia (Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, Second Edition 1964)Google Scholar deals with domestic questions in some detail. The most complete examination of the period from the end of the Second World War until the creation of the Sangkum is Preschez, Philippe's Essai sur la démocratie an Cambodge (Paris, Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politques Centre vies Etudes des Relations Internationales, 1901.Google Scholar
2. Cambodia's constitutional and political framework is examined in great detail in a recently published study in French; Gour, Claude-Gilles, Institutions constitutionelles et politiques dn Cambodge (Paris, Librarie Dalloz, 1965).Google Scholar
3. Students of Cambodian politics must accept that the official French translations of Prince Sihanouk's speeches lack much of the earthy humor and direct allusions of the Cambodian original. They must also accept that statements made in the Cambodian original need not be reproduced in the final French text, which alone is considered official.
4. The record of Cambodia's relations with Thailand and Viet-Nam over the past ten years shows a steady decline in mutual trust and understanding, to the present situation in which there are no diplomatic relations between Cambodia and her two most important neighbors. It still appears, however, that there is a qualitative difference between Cambodian attitude towards Thailand and the Thais, who share so many common cultural characteristics, and the Vietnamese, with their alien cultural background.
5. Discussion of the economic difficulties which Cambodia now faces and of the accompanying problem of corruption has been a prominent part of the news released in the official news bulletin, Agence Khmère de Presse, during 1966. See, particularly, releases during May, 1966.
6. In introducing this new element Prince Sihanouk stated that it would provide an answer to the criticisms that certain persons of ill-will formulate against the functioning of our institutions'. Le Monde 27 10 1966.Google Scholar